Patricia Schley, the school’s literacy coach, was trying to promote a training session for parents. She wanted to show them how to help their teens become better readers. She had scheduled the evening event for more than a month before the FCATs.

Wednesday night — the extra day of the leap year — would be literacy night…

So on Friday afternoon, Austin Simmons stood in the parking lot, holding a stack of letters, squinting into the sun. It had been a long week. Simmons’ motorcycle had broken down. He had just gotten a call from the shop telling him that the part he needed would cost $1,200.

He lifted the letters to the sign, slid them into words: “Laeping to literacy night 6:30 p.m.”

Sunday morning, Schley was leaving church when she saw the sign. She blanched, embarrassed and upset. “I’m the literacy coach,” she said later. “Of course that reflects on me.”

She pulled over and texted the principal: “We don’t LAEP into literacy.”